Is Aspartame a killer?

[IrishEyes]

I got one of those e-mails the other day... you know the type: "My sister almost died because of aspartame, but I'd just read an article about it, and now she's fine, but I don't want anyone else to die, so I'm gonne mass e-mail the world..."

Well, before I deleted it, I read through the list of symptoms that this guy listed, and Googled some of the things that were in this e-mail (specifically the use of the name of a Senator trying to get a bill passed). Everything that I checked was actually out there in cyberspace. So I re-read the article and started thinking about my mother-in-law, a Diet Pepsi junkie, and how many health problems she has developed in recent years.

Has anyone else ever heard of aspartame poinsoning? Do you know of anyone that has suffered from it? If it is a valid concern, why is it still in our food?

Your comments are welcome!

[IrishEyes]

I wanted to add an excerpt from the e-mail, so you guys will know to what I am referring, ok?

 

> I have spent several days lecturing at the WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE on "ASPARTAME," marketed as 'NutraSweet,' 'Equal,' and 'Spoonful.'>

> In the keynote address by the EPA, it was announced that in the United States in 2001 there is an epidemic of multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. It was difficult to determine exactly what toxin was causing this to be rampant.

> I stood up and said that I was there to lecture on exactly that subject. I will explain why Aspartame is so dangerous: When the temperature of this sweetener exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol in ASPARTAME converts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which in turn causes metabolic acidosis. Formic acid is the poison found in the sting of fire ants. The methanol

> toxicity mimics, among other conditions, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus.

> Many people were being diagnosed in error. Although multiple sclerosis is not a death sentence.. methanol toxicity is!

> Systemic lupus has become almost as rampant as multiple sclerosis, especially with Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi drinkers. The victim usually does not know that the Aspartame is the culprit. He or she continues its use; irritating the lupus to such a degree that it may become a life-threatening condition.We have seen patients with systemic lupus become asymptotic, once taken off diet sodas.In cases of those diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, (when in reality, the disease is methanol toxicity), most of the symptoms disappear. We've seen many cases where vision loss returned and hearing loss improved markedly.This also applies to cases of tinnitus and fibromyalgia.

> During a lecture, I said, "If you are using ASPARTAME (NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc.) and you suffer from fibromyalgia symptoms, spasms, shooting, pains, numbness in your legs, cramps, vertigo, dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, joint pain, unexplainable depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech,blurred vision, or memory loss...you probably have ASPARTAME poisoning!"

 

As you can see, the list of symptoms was a bit long. So I googled "aspartame poisoning", and it was rather astonishing. Of course, there are more than a few skeptics. Then I picked up my flavored bottled water that I've been guzzling for the past three weeks and realized it contained aspartame. So I sat down the water and thought of my health over the past few weeks, and decided to stop drinking the water. Now, I didn't lose 40 pounds the next day, but I did manage to get rid of a nasty headache that had been plaguing me for a week. Could have been coincidence, who knows. But I'm gonna be reading labels from now on.

[Chacmool]

I don't have any scientific evidence to back me up (a lot of contradictory studies out there anyway), but I'm sure it can't be good for you. I don't know if it will kill you, but I can't think that anything artificial is good for your body. For that matter, I don't think there's a single ingredient in Pepsi or any other soft drink (diet or otherwise) that IS good for you! Stick to the freshly-squeezed juice of organically grown oranges. :xx:

 

But seriously, I think we go around blaming single ingredients while the entire product is actually harmful - or at the very least not helpful. I can only speak from personal experience, and I know I feel much better both mentally and physically if I stay away from artificial products as far as possible. Nothing wrong with some good old cane sugar instead of aspartame.

[C1ay]

I don't think there's a single ingredient in Pepsi or any other soft drink (diet or otherwise) that IS good for you!

The key ingredient in all of them, water, is very good for you. It's also my favorite drink.

[Chacmool]

The key ingredient in all of them, water, is very good for you. It's also my favorite drink.

 

Touché! I should have seen that one coming. :xx:

[C1ay]

I did have a doctor mention to me in passing one time that he couldn't understand why so many people would use a diet sweetener that is known to increase your appetite. He said it really defeats it's own purpose.

 

I personally use Splenda wherever I choose to use a low-cal sweetener since it is a product of sugar and not an artificial sweetener.

[nkt]

Aspartame is worrying. It also causes issues because, as it warns on everything that it is in, it "contains a source of Phenylalanine" which is lethal to some people, I believe.

 

The idea of adding a sweetener to water seems weird to me, anyway.

 

I tend to drink "full fat" drinks, as I hate the aftertaste of Aspartame. Weight for weight, aspartame is actually more calorific than sugar, IIRC, but is massively sweeter, so even trace amounts have an effect.

[GAHD]

I've known it could cause helth issues for years now, though more as a cancer agent. The rest of that doesn't surprise me too much, considering the diabetics in my familly are all messed up it could just be that.

[Tormod]

I think all things considered you can't be much worse off drinking diet soda than any other sodas. Pure water will always be the better option, though...

[adnaan]

I personally use Splenda wherever I choose to use a low-cal sweetener since it is a product of sugar and not an artificial sweetener.

 

CLay Watch OUT! but what splenda claims isnt all what it seems.. supposedly from this article.

 

http://health.benabraham.com/html/lethal_science_of_splenda.html

 

it seems that splenda is a bit toxic..

[C1ay]

CLay Watch OUT! but what splenda claims isnt all what it seems.. supposedly from this article.

 

http://health.benabraham.com/html/lethal_science_of_splenda.html

 

it seems that splenda is a bit toxic..

Thanks, I've seen that before. I don't eat much of it, maybe a couple of teaspoons a week so. I don't think it will get to me near as fast as all of those people drinking the new diet coke.

[GAHD]

I'll never understand the 'low cal diet' people are doing, why not just do calesthenics? Aerobics? ANY kind of workout to burn them? bah, time for everyone to be vivisected and have their stomaches stapeled and intestines shortened, that'll fix weight disorders.

[IrishEyes]

I'll never understand the 'low cal diet' people are doing, why not just do calesthenics? Aerobics? ANY kind of workout to burn them? bah, time for everyone to be vivisected and have their stomaches stapeled and intestines shortened, that'll fix weight disorders.

I just had that same discussion yesterday. I know a woman who has had the gastric bypass thing three times. Yep, 3! Can you believe that? And guess how she finally lost weight... A modified Atkins diet.

Please don't think I'm endorsing Atkins. But her main point was that if you don't get to the root of why you eat so much, you're just going to keep doing it. Staples in stomachs notwithstanding, making the decision to have a healthier lifestyle with good diet (by that I mean watching what foods you put into your mouth, not counting calories) and regular excercise seems a lot safer than anything else on the market. Plus - it's free!

 

By the way, though it seems the e-mail was a hoax (big surprise there!), there is an awful lot of information on the net concerning aspartame poinsoning. While I don't think it causes MS or Lupus, I don't doubt that to people with sensitivities it could bring on symptoms that are much like both, which is what the e-mail claims.

 

And I like flavored water because I spent so much time on a navy ship drinking water tainted with JP5 that I couldn't even look at the stuff for years afterwards. So now, even at restaurants, I add lemon. It's not the sweetener that I like, it's that tang. But I prefer water over juices or lemonades. Of course, as Tormod and C1ay can both attest, I really prefer a decent beer most of the time.

[CraigD]

The email you excerpt is considered to be a hoax. Debunkers claim that the conference in question never occurred, and that its authors - Betty Martini or Nancy Markle, are not real people. Betty Martini, however, appears to be a real anti-aspartame activist, and the telephone number give for her in some version of the email, 770-242-2599, appears to be legitimate.

 

It’s a confusing and controversial claim, made no less so by the history of the US FDA approval of aspartame, in which a reluctant FDA head was fired by Ronald Regan, allegedly at the request of then CEO of G.D. Searle & Company, the company that invented it, and replaced by one who immediately approved it.

 

The skullduggery and pseudoscience of this runs long and deep, so lets skip to the science.

 

When compared to most things we eat, aspartame is chemically much simpler and better known. Unlike most animal or plant tissues, which contain many unknown molecules, aspartame is so simple that it can’t even be targeted by the immune system, so there’s no chance of it causing a dangerous food allergy. In toxicology, food allergy is often the diagnosis of last resort - they certainly occur, can be very severe, but are very difficult to pinpoint to a specific molecule. There are credible conjectures that food allergies may contribute to many health problems, such as Diabetes and Muscular Dystrophy.

 

Aspartame, on the other hand, poses 2 major and well recognized threats to health: it contains:

1) Phenylalanine, and

2) Methanol

 

If you’re one of the roughtly 1-in-15,000 people who have Phenylketonuria, you must carefully limit you intake of phenylalanine to no more than you can excrete in ketones in your urine, or suffer nerve and brain damage. Your intake of meat, nuts, dairy products, and aspartame all need to be restricted, so you’d likely avoid aspartame alltogether.

 

Methanol metabolizes into formaldehyde, which the human body can safely metabolize into formic acid (which is then excrete in urine) in only limited quantities. An overdose of anything that metabolizes into formaldehyde can raise blood acidity to lethal levels (which is why you shouldn’t drink wood alcohol!). There’s also a well-understood molecular mechanism that strongly supports the idea that high blood formaldehyde levels cause cancer. Safety research done during the approval process for aspartame clearly shows that very large doses of it cause an increased incidence of cancer in rats.

 

Clearly, then, mega-dosing on straight liquid aspartame products, is a unpleasant way to kill yourself, and reducing the dosage to just under lethal levels increases your risk of cancer. The critical question is, at what levels does normal ingestion does it begin to pose a significant risk.

 

My personal judgment is that having a diet coke for lunch and dinner won’t kill you, but drinking gallons of NutraSweet-flavored sports drink while running across a desert in summer (or drinking lots of soft drinks while taking part in the 1st Gulf War) might.

 

Sugar, though, causes tooth decay, and tends to make you fat. Both can damage your heart. Ideally, we should just control our love of sweets, but failing that, my guess is that one’s better off with aspartame than sugar.

[IrishEyes]

Thanks, CraigD. That was very helpful.

When I first received the e-mail, I googled things like the claim : "> Senator Howard Metzenbaum wrote and presented a bill that would require label warnings on products containing Aspartame, especially regarding pregnant women, children and infants. The bill would also institute independent studies on the known dangers and the problems existing in the general population regarding seizures, changes in brain chemistry, neurological changes and behavioral symptoms. The bill was killed. " That was the big one to me, but it proved to be true.

Then I googled aspartame poisoning, and came up with a host of sites dedicated to telling the world all about this. Like this one: http://www.dorway.com/ ; and this one: http://www.sweetpoison.com/ .

It wasn't until this morning that I realized I hadn't gotten the http://www.snopes.com view of things. Of course, to them it is all a hoax. Nancy Merkle may not have been a real person, but Ms. Martini seems to be. I've read about her on quite a few different sites.

So what does it all mean? Well, I think you were pretty head on in your post, and I thank you for the time you put into it.

And to anyone wondering, I'm just gonna stick with gatorade's new Propel water from now on, thank you very much!

[Biochemist]

Time for the the pharmacologist wo weigh in.

 

If aspartame is toxic, it can't be related to any of the mechanisms offered in the (hoax) email. The majority break-down products (aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol) are all naturally occurring products. The toxic dose for methanol is usually in the several ounce range, which would translate into about 2500 cans of diet soda. One would probably have to drink that much in less than 12 hours to get any sort of toxicity.

 

I think you would have been dead from the 230 gallons of water before the aspartame caused any methanol damage. And the water would help wash out the methanol.

 

For casual drinkers, Aspartame produces only slightly more methanol than is naturally occurring in orange juice, and less than is naturally occurring in tomato juice or grape juice. Tomato juice is about three time the methanol content.

 

Aspartic acid and phenylalanine are naturally ocurring amino acids, and many sources are far richer in those constituents than diet soda. Even folks with PKU are unlikely to have their metabolism affected by aspartame, since the dose is so low.

 

To be fair, the risk of aspartame should be balanced against the risk of soda consumption with sugar in it. If one were to assume that an individual drank 20% of the volume of aspartame-sweetened soda as regular sugar-laden soda, the incidence of deleterious effects from hyperglycemia (e.g., diabetics) or hypoglycemia (reactive hypoglycemics) are worse that then effects of the rare carriers of PKU.

 

Ergo, one caould actually argue that use of aspartame-containing beverages is actually therapeutic to the population at large in the public health sense.

[CraigD]

Useful numbers, Biochemist – thanks for the expertise.

 

Since liquid NutraSweet has 400-1000 times the concentration of a typical beverage containing it, then, you’d need to drink roughly 20-80 liquid ounces for a lethal ethanol dose. I’ve seen the stuff for sale in 60 ml (~2 oz) dropper dispensers, so you’d need 10-40 of them.

 

Doesn’t seem like an accidental fatal overdose is possible.

 

The cancer risk is harder to quantify. Excessive sugar can cause digestive inflammation, which can result in cancer of the throat, stomach and bowels. Aspartame’s carcinogenic metabolite, formaldehyde, is blood born, so might contribute to cancers with a lower chance of successful diagnosis and treatment. Still, compared to an equivalent diet replacing aspartame with corn sweetener, etc, one with aspartame appears healthier.

 

I assume – I’ve not actually verified – that there have been no significant increases in the incidence of cancer in general or of these kinds in the 2 decades that aspartame has been widely used. If so, I’d say the food industry, medical establishment, and government are correct, and the conspiracy claimants wrong on this issue.

 

Nonetheless, I find the way Regan et. al. rushed the approval process in the 1980s sleazy and disgraceful.